Melissa Perri on Using Enabling Teams as ‘Sensors’ for Platform Investment

In a recent LinkedIn post, product management expert Melissa Perri discusses a critical, often overlooked, role for “enabling teams” within product organizations: acting as early warning systems for the development of shared platform services. Perri highlights how these teams, by working across various development units, can identify systemic inefficiencies that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Perri, who recently hosted Matthew Skelton, co-author of “Team Topologies,” on her “Product Thinking” podcast, emphasizes that enabling teams offer a unique vantage point. She notes:

“Enabling teams move across the organization and see patterns nobody else sees. When they notice 17 teams all struggling with the same regulatory reporting challenge, that’s a signal to build shared infrastructure.”

Identifying Redundancy for Strategic Investment

The core argument presented by Perri is that enabling teams can save companies significant time and resources by proactively identifying areas ripe for platform investment. Instead of lengthy planning meetings filled with guesswork about centralizing services like authentication or data pipelines, Perri suggests leveraging the ground-level intelligence gathered by enabling teams.

As Melissa Perri argues, these teams are uniquely positioned to spot the “duplication is killing velocity.” She elaborates:

“Most companies waste months in planning meetings debating what to centralize, guessing whether to build a shared authentication service or a common data pipeline. But when your enabling teams are working across multiple stream-aligned teams, they can detect where duplication is killing velocity.”

This direct observation of redundant work, according to Perri, provides a clear and actionable trigger for prioritizing platform development. It shifts the decision-making process from abstract debate to data-driven insight derived from the day-to-day struggles of development teams.

Enabling Teams: Sensors, Not Just Consultants

Perri challenges the common perception of enabling teams as solely focused on upskilling other teams. She advocates for a broader view, where their cross-organizational visibility is harnessed for strategic advantage. Perri poses a direct question to her audience, prompting reflection on their current practices:

“Are you using enabling teams as sensors, or just consultants?”

In her view, the goal should be to “upskill teams until they’re independent again, and spot when building once serves everyone better than training 20 teams separately.” This perspective suggests that the ultimate aim of an enabling team is not just to transfer knowledge but to identify and facilitate the creation of shared solutions that provide lasting value and efficiency across the organization.

Perri encourages readers to explore these concepts further, referencing her podcast episode 262 for a more in-depth discussion on structuring product organizations effectively. Her insights offer a compelling case for re-evaluating the strategic potential of enabling teams within modern product development environments.